


With the Help of a Deathsman

by talefeathers



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Blood, Drabble, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23528869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: In the wake of Jaskier's death, Geralt tells Yennefer of a prophecy he once heard.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Tumblr Drabbles





	With the Help of a Deathsman

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Things you said after it was over."
> 
> While I did take this prophecy from the books, I haven't finished the series yet, so I don't know whether or not it actually plays out, or how, so depending on how far off the mark I am you can just treat this as a bit of an AU, haha.

Geralt sensed more than he heard Yennefer’s arrival from where he sat on the reedy beach, letting the tide lap the blood from his boots. He tensed, and she must have seen it because she asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

He didn’t, but he also didn’t want her to stay; he realized, in a distant way, that he didn’t much want anything at all. He shook his head, and she sat down in the sand beside him.

“He’ll be a martyr before too long,” she said, “once the public finally comes around. They’ll sing his ballads like anthems. He’d like that, wouldn’t he?”

He would have liked the idea of it, certainly, but that hardly seemed to matter. Jaskier couldn’t very well like anything anymore. Rather than say so, however, Geralt told her a story, one whose shadow had grown long in his mind.

“Years ago,” he told her, “when he was still just a lad, some twenty, twenty-five… An elvish woman divined for him his future.”

Yennefer said nothing, but watched him, listening.

“He didn’t ask, didn’t—hadn’t paid her anything. Probably didn’t even see her, too busy trying to chatter my ears off.”

He felt a smile at the thought, but ached too much to let it form.

“She said, ‘You, little one,’ and the way she said it, it was like we couldn’t have ignored her if we’d wanted to. ‘You will leave this veil of tears upon a scaffold, with the help of a deathsman.’”

He felt a tightness rising in his throat and clenched his jaw against it.

“He chuckled, of course, and babbled it away, called it ‘tawdry fortune-telling,’ but I could tell that it had shaken him, and. Well, I knew it was probably nothing, but still I told myself, I. I promised. That I wouldn’t let it happen.”

Yennefer tried to cast him one of her sardonic looks, but couldn’t quite manage to hide the softness in her violet eyes.

“One of these days you’ll finally get it through your skull that you can’t dodge destiny, Geralt,” she said. Fondly. Sadly.

“I had to try.” He watched the blood swirling off his boots. “Because when the elvish woman said ‘deathsman,’ she was looking right at me.”

Anyone else would have placated him, would have told him it wasn’t his fault, but he and Yennefer knew one another better than that.

Yennefer knew, as well as he did, that while Geralt hadn’t tied the noose, the blood on those boots might as well have been the bard’s.


End file.
